User talk:Father Goose

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[edit] Re: Just drop it

The Editor's Barnstar
For making very smart edits to Wikipedia:Just drop it, and thereby making my raw idea in stream-of-consciousness form into something Wikipedians would actually find useful, I hereby present you with this Editor's Barnstar. Equazcion •✗/C • 14:57, 21 Mar 2008 (UTC)

[edit] VP request

"I have received a satisfactory answer on a different page, and am content to shelve this thread." — May I ask which page? Dorftrottel (talk) 13:01, March 22, 2008

Kim's.--Father Goose (talk) 18:23, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WP:SYN

See the discussion at Wikipedia:Synthesis on video games... And thanks for your help. Are you pretty involved with editing and clarifying the policy pages? Because if you are, I'd really like to see WP:SYN clarified/amended to explain what we've been talking about in this policy page. Can you explain the process behind this? I don't want to start changing longstanding policy. Let me know. Policywonker (talk) 04:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again for your help at Wikipedia talk:Synthesis on video games. I've put together a strawman proposal, based on some of the things you said. Is there a process for changing wikipedia policy like this? At what point do we know when a proposal is ready to implement, and how do we go about it? Hoping to hear your feedback. Policywonker (talk) 00:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Changing policy is hard, except when it isn't. From what I understand, the SYN portion of WP:NOR has been batted around a lot, since the advice it gives is not terribly clear. NOR in general has been the site of many an edit war. Certain people set up camp to defend parts of it that match their opinions and it becomes hard to alter stuff that might not even have majority approval, let alone "consensus", whatever that is.
If I were taking on the battle, I'd post to Wikipedia talk:No original research and first scout out whether or not the "Kenny dies" example is considered to be SYNTH (or even OR). I'm sure some people will say so, but if there isn't wide agreement on it, then that interpretation is demonstrably invalid (policies must represent consensus positions).
Then, if it's clear that that interpretation of SYNTH is invalid, you could start suggesting small changes to the wording of SYNTH (maybe an added sentence) to make it clear that it does not refer to "accurate summarizing descriptions of multiple sources" (or something like that). If you manage to get a reasonable degree of agreement for that, you could then edit in the change. Then it would probably get reverted by those who insist that SYNTH applies to anything not explicitly stated in a secondary source.
Then you'll have to spend the next few years figuring out how to get past such editors, who are in essence practicing a form of filibuster. I'm only barely learning how to make small policy changes "stick", here and there.
However, once in a while, when you propose something reasonable, most people agree that it's reasonable, and you can make a change that doesn't result in a war. I don't anticipate you will have an easy time with the changes you seek to make to SYNTH, but since the changes should be made, try anyway. Good luck; I'll keep an eye on the situation and offer additional counsel if possible.--Father Goose (talk) 02:24, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Calling all readers of FG's talk page

If any of you have some time to spare, could you look over Monty Hall problem#Solution and Monty Hall problem/draft#Solution (just the solution section) and offer your opinion about which is more understandable at talk:Monty Hall problem? Much obliged.--Father Goose (talk) 07:25, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Analysis disambiguation

Hello! I am really sorry for tagging Talk:Analysis as a disambiguation project page. But in actual it wasn't my error, I am performing automated edits using AWB, and I have generated the list of disambiguation pages from here. So, if you think that Analysis is no more a disambig or never was, Plz! go on and remove it from there. Thanks! --SMS Talk 09:47, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

No need to apologize. I've removed the page from the list of disambigs.--Father Goose (talk) 21:21, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FAR on Monty Hall problem

Monty Hall problem has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. - Chardish (talk) 06:12, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Classical music in popular culture nominated for deletion

If you have an opinion, please voice it here. --Ravpapa (talk) 09:42, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, we fought the good fight and lost. Thanks for your support. --Ravpapa (talk) 15:57, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

No problem. I knew that one in particular was going to be lost, but I always like sharpening my arguments, because there'll always be another battle.--Father Goose (talk) 19:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Monty Hall solution section

Hi - Could you please take a look at this version and let me know what you think (it's yet another new version)? The decision tree will become a graphic eventually. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Based on other comments here I gather you might be otherwise occupied, but if you could take a look at Monty Hall problem/draft#Solution (just the solution section, not the entire draft) and let me know what you think, I'd really appreciate it. Compared to the current version in the article the main points are to re-orient your graphic based on the location of the car rather than the player's car/goatA/goatB choice, and follow up the "unconditional" analysis with a conditional analysis using a (referenced) decision tree (which eliminates the need for the existing "Decision tree" section). Note the decision tree precisely matches the large graphic and the player's choice is always Door 1, so everything in the entire Solution section is consistent (this isn't true in the current version). All the images are svg (I've figured out how to run Inkscape). Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, again, I'm dragging my feet on my reply to that. To really do it justice, I'd need to spend a lot of time analyzing and commenting on it, but it's not where I want to focus my energies at this time.
I will say (or ask) this, though: why switch to a car-location instead of player-choice layout?--Father Goose (talk) 07:22, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh, right, I guess you just answered that -- for consistency's sake (the player always picks Door 1 in all the other given examples.
In isolation (i.e., not needing to be consistent with the other examples), I feel that a constant set of doors has a more physically intuitive feel to it: here's the situation (car goat goat), and two of three choices you can make will win when switching.
I'd suggest asking some of the people who recently commented on the current graphic whether they think the draft one is equivalent. If they find it equally understandable, then I'm fine with switching it.--Father Goose (talk) 07:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. Aside from internal consistency, the two other reasons to switch to a car-location based diagram are because:
  1. this is how the solution is presented in nearly all references (I can't think of a single one that isn't fundamentally based on the car location). I haven't added a reference for the first part of the solution section (yet) - I'm considering referencing one of Marilyn's Parade columns (or her book - which I've ordered from Amazon but don't have yet).
  2. the car/goatA/goatB version essentially precludes a conditional analysis (it's very difficult to go from this explanation to the conditional one)
BTW - I agree the constant car/goat/goat arrangement and varying the player's choice is very intuitive. Whenever you get a chance, I suspect you might find the Krauss and Wang paper quite interesting. It's a reasonably recent experimental psychology paper that attempts to answer why people so often arrive at the wrong answer. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I want to add a "psychology of this problem" section (not sure exactly what the section title should be). There have been numerous psychology studies about it. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
If you also feel that the car-goat-goat layout is the most intuitive, I really question the value of changing it. Nobody has yet complained that the illustration gives the wrong answer or is inconsistent with the other examples in the article. I'd place readers' ability to understand the explanation ahead of other concerns.
Incidentally, I've been quite gratified about the compliments the illustration has received recently. I've been under the impression that the number of "this article is wrong" complaints on the talk page have dropped off since it was added. The one problem I haven't quite licked with it is the occasional impression that the host-reveals-either-goat probabilities are 1/4, not 1/6. (I briefly put 1/6s in there, but that requires the stipulation that the host will always choose randomly between them, which is irrelevant to the unconditional explanation.)--Father Goose (talk) 19:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure the intuitive difference between the car-goat-goat layout and the one based on the car's location is large - and I think it's definitely not a good idea for our main presentation to not easily lead to a conditional analysis. I realize we're not quite on the same page about this (perhaps that's an understatement), but I am at this point nearly in complete agreement with the basic point "anon-many-ips" raised several weeks ago which is that the problem as typically stated requires a conditional analysis. In my search for references (responsive to the FAR), I've read a fair number of papers about the problem by now. Virtually every serious mathematical article about it (and most of the experimental psychology ones as well) distinguish between the unconditional and conditional approaches, and make the point that the problem as typically posed is asking the conditional question. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:12, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
But we have to reconcile that with the apparent fact that most explanations of the problem, when it appears in non-mathematical publications, are unconditional. It explains the underlying paradox in a less muddled (and still correct) way, although it is mathematically wrong if one does not distill the question as asked back into an unconditional form.--Father Goose (talk) 19:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I think the approach should be to present an unconditional analysis clearly identified as such, using words like "on average" or "over all players", but then to immediately follow this up with a conditional analysis. The Solution section in the draft I keep pointing you to has this structure. I think making the transition understandable pretty much requires reworking the unconditional analysis to be car-location centric (which is why I've changed this in the draft - it makes the correspondence between the unconditional analysis and the conditional analysis readily apparent). -- Rick Block (talk) 00:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not in love with the explanation of the conditional analysis provided there. It's not as clear as it could be. But to improve it, I'd probably have to rewrite it myself, which is not a trivial task, so for now I'm overlooking it.
I do accept the approach of providing both unconditional and conditional solutions, however.--Father Goose (talk) 01:12, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Redshirts

That ridiculously long list is looking somewhat shorter and less irrelevant now... 78.86.18.55 (talk) 12:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Misunderstanding?

Did you misunderstand my quotation from the template on the top of the WP:CIV article itself as a unilateral demand? I'm trying to understand what made you bring up the block of another user. To me, this was out of the blue. Antelantalk 02:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I do see people sometimes say things to the effect of "don't edit policy or guideline pages unless you have consensus first", and I believe that is more or less what you said regarding WP:CIV. It's just the wrong advice, for the reasons I outlined in my post, and it is unenforceable, as the Ottava case demonstrates.
This may seem to contradict what the Policy and Guideline templates say. They state the case too conservatively, though that is preferable to stating it too liberally ("Sure, change this policy any way you like!"). The best way to determine consensus for an action is simply to take it and see if there is opposition to it. (If there is, then discuss it instead of fighting over it.) One should never assume that there will be opposition to an action taken in good faith, especially one that is easy to undo. This even applies to policy changes.
This may or may not come as a surprise to you. It is, however, true. What is on policy pages should represent consensus, to be sure. However, this does not mandate the formation of consensus prior to editing such pages. Consensus is best formed through the process of editing (which does not include edit-warring). Requiring that consensus be formed or tested in advance of editing is a bureaucratic way of sealing a page in stone, and paradoxically ensures that it will fail to reflect consensus, due to the fact that consensus can (and does) change.--Father Goose (talk) 02:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
That is one opinion, and mine is another. Truth, though? Even I don't claim to have that. For what it's worth, I did take your reference of the blocked user as a veiled threat. Try an alternate approach the next time, before bringing up the specter of blocks, and you might get a warmer response. Antelantalk 02:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah, it wasn't intended as a threat. Sorry 'bout that. I'll be careful to avoid that implication in the future.--Father Goose (talk) 03:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
No worries, and thanks for the clarification. Nice work with the userbox debacle; if it's held for 5 minutes, even after multiple comments, I have high hopes that it will hold indefinitely. +1 point for your approach... Antelantalk 03:23, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Your approach

I suppose this will give us a chance to see how your suggested approach works. I'll be taking notes (whether successful or not). Regards, Antelantalk 03:03, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Coolio.--Father Goose (talk) 03:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, of course. Good solution, right off. I re-edited the userbox to read "This user believes in One God." The "Allah" is already there in the Arabic, that's what it says. Of course, the actual text is up to each user if they don't like the default.
As to the idea that there was some panic here, there are two dead representatives of Penguin Books, and quite a few others died over Satanic Verses. Now, there, there were intellectual freedom issues, and I happen to think the whole affair tragic and ironic, because few even noticed what Satanic Verses actually was: a parody of, among other things, British culture, ignorant mullahs, and none other than the Ayatollah Khomeini. Not at *all* what was claimed by those who attacked it. I was not very popular for a while on usenet for pointing this out....
I'm saying that I have far more understanding of that culture and what could happen than you do. The risk is real, and people promoting Wikipedia in Muslim countries could needlessly die. Real death, not wiki-death. For an important issue, indeed, we must take the risk. But not for assumptions of bad faith and ignorance.
The credo is not an attack, it is an affirmation. The *full* credo actually begins with a statement of atheism. "There is no god ..." Did you know that the early Christians were considered "atheists" because they rejected the gods? The credo then continues "... but (the) God, he is one, he has no partners." The soundest etymology of the name Allah is that it was an elided al-ilah, the god, and this is very clearly not a tribal god or even anything that can be fixed in conception, it is a single reality, and "reality" or "truth" is explicitly one of the equivalent names. The credo then goes on with "and Muhammad is his servant and prophet," which is likewise clearly not exclusive; but this, then is particular and not universal. So to claim that this is offensive, that it is attacking anyone, is itself highly offensive. It is projecting offensive meaning onto the intention of those who make this affirmation. It would be like telling a Christian who says, "I believe in Jesus," that he has just claimed that everyone is going to Hell who doesn't think like him. He might, perhaps, think that, or not, but that is not what he said.
I did not claim that the matter shouldn't be debated. Rather, it should be dealt with on a policy level, in general. The real issue is a highly contentious one, here, on which no community consensus has been found, the question of what is allowed in userboxes. I did write to Jimbo and his response was that he would delete all religious userboxes. That would not create the hazard I saw. It was a specific deletion threat to this particular userbox that created the risk. There are not many like that. Many such deletion attempts create a big fuss here, with MfDs with many, many contentious comments, but the risk here was bigger than that, and more serious. And you can make fun of it if you like. I hope life treats you kindly. Watch out, there are places you can trip.--Abd (talk) 02:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Again, I agreed with your position on keeping the tag, but I really find your approach troubling. Is your underlying argument so weak that you need to invoke the specter of death to sway people? I think you can do better. Antelantalk 03:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but something should be made clear. I've mentioned risks from this process, not to "sway people" but to prevent damage. I first intervened in the MfD on purely local considerations. Then I realized the risk. People have died over stuff like this. I don't like that, in fact I detest it. I'm not threatening anything, I'm warning. It looks like we are going to be left with keep. But stuff like this could seriously harm the project, and, beyond that, real people. I don't want to put words in Jimbo's mouth, but he thinks all religious and political userboxes should be prohibited. That would not be a problem. Targeting the particular userbox, in the manner in which it was targeted, could pose a risk. Listen or not. But don't say that there was no expression of concern. ("how could we possibly have anticipated that ...") --Abd (talk) 03:44, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Don';t change people's wordings for them Saying that one believes in allah is different than saying that one believes in One god. One wording is used only by Muslims, the other by christians and Jews also. the etymology isn;t relevant, the generally accepted implications and usage is what counts. An edit like that seems to like changing this user supports the Republican Party to this users supports a republican form of government; certainly the Republican party supports a republican form of government, and so do many others. DGG (talk) 03:24, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I was concerned about that too. I changed it again, being WP:BOLD as I'm a Muslim, and think that most Muslims would be pleased with the change. By the way, I know some Christians who would be quite happy with the userbox as I've left it, i.e., Allah (arabic script) This user believes in One God. Muslims, speaking English, often use the word God too, and Arab Christians use Allah, though they may tend to use forms of Rabb (Lord) more often. Muslims also use Rabb. It's ... One God! DGG, you are arguing with a Muslim writer about what this means to Muslims? I've talked about this as a khatib, the ummah seemed to appreciate it....—Preceding unsigned comment added by Abd (talk • contribs)
I am arguing about what his statement may mean to other people. I have known Republicans making claims for what their party name means. Not all of them are justified. That's why I picked that example. I have seen many people of one religion explaining their faith in ways which imply they assume or incorporate other religions, and the other religions deny it. To a Hindu, the world Lord means usually Krishna; to a Christian it means Christ. A Deist believes in one God, and could say as much, but that doesn't mean he believes in the God of the Abrahamic religions. For a prime example of where this can lead, seethe articles about messianic Judaism. Best followed up off wiki, if you like.DGG (talk) 23:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-Americanism

I don't normally do this, but I need a sane and rational person at this discussion. I've not only known you to be balanced, but also as someone who's good at sizing up a situation and expressing it articulately, and that's what we need right now.

Before I cut it down significantly, this article was about what I perceive to be two different definitions of anti-Americanism.

  • One definition is the sentiment of people who openly declare that they hate America. They walk around with flags that say "Death to America" etc.
  • The other thing this article covered was a classification made by philosophers and editorials, that group together similar sentiments, actions, and opinions of people around the world, into something they can compact and call anti-Americanism. In my opinion, this is not factual, and should be kept out of the article.

Others disagree with me on this. They think that when people have a complaint against something America does, it's okay to call that anti-Americanism, as long as we have a source that confirms the people did at least indeed have that complaint. I say, if you want to call me "anti-Susan", you need more proof than the fact that I once berated her for hitting someone.

I'll end there. For more you can take a look at the talk page. I hope I expressed that clearly enough. If you feel like getting involved (I totally understand if you don't), I'd of course appreciate it. And you can of course feel free to disagree with my take on this. I would see your involvement as a positive thing regardless. Equazcion •✗/C • 21:30, 10 Apr 2008 (UTC)

PS. Here's how it looked before I gutted it: [1], and here's a diff of my gutting: [2] Equazcion •✗/C • 21:39, 10 Apr 2008 (UTC)

In a quick assessment, I'm inclined to say you pruned too much, though there was a lot there that was making generalizations on the basis of what looked like isolated incidents.
When reading the article, my first was that the absence of HUAC from the "propaganda term" section was a glaring omission. The difference between "unamerican" and "anti-american" is that context is a semantic one, I feel, and HUAC was the height of patriotic scoundrelism.--Father Goose (talk) 11:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit fix

Hi! In this edit, you removed three editors' posts, which I reinserted. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 00:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that. My browser's done that a couple of times lately, I'm not sure why.--Father Goose (talk) 00:59, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

The Original Barnstar
For boldly changing the unencyclopedic template. SunCreator (talk) 23:36, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! :-) --Father Goose (talk) 23:46, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Cabals

I moved it from my userspace because it is probably spent now. Considering you did much of its new format, please take it on. It is never going to go beyond a sketch. If you can make it into a real essay (with a pithy nutshell) then I would be happy to help. The most recent discussion which seems to tide with the spiel/essay we worked on is here Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2008_April_11 (# User:Keilana/Deleted cabals).

Thanks for you input, it was only a Sunday morning attempt at counter-acting an idea?? (Cabal policy idea which Wikipedia didn't need and doesn't need.

I think what we can all gather from the discussion is that Wikipedia is organic. It doesn't need a lot of policies but general ideas we can all cull from past discussions if editors do need explanations. Essays are a good short hand at pointing to discussions and reasoning. I do suspect that it will stay orphaned (unless you get a pithy nutshell) and work on the ideas of the last DR.

kind regards and again thanks for your input (it wasn't viewed very much - Bpeps Cabals while the Policy Cabal) beat it 1:10. -- BpEps - t@lk 09:42, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

MoP's work was only viewed more because he promoted it more... but everyone agreed with you that a "cabal policy" is an overwrought approach. What you wrote is a fine overview of the nature of cabals on Wikipedia and how they are regarded. Perfectly good essay. At a minimum, we can probably link to Cabals from WP:CABAL. I'll keep an eye out for other related pages.--Father Goose (talk) 10:14, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
dunno thought the idea was for editors to comment at "Cabal Policy" not just walk away and "tut". Again thanks for your help and continued interest if it is to stay out of a CSD sweep at least add a "nutshell". :-) kind regards -- BpEps - t@lk 10:47, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Images needed template in article space

Please comment on a new article space template at TfD Images needed. GregManninLB (talk) 08:05, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] thanks for the laugh

with this edit summary :) TRAVELLINGCARIMy storyTell me yours 17:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

 :-) --Father Goose (talk) 19:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nancy Boyda

I have for now added the link to User:XLinkBot, blacklisting seems appropriate. Have you considered asking for page-protection, that inhibits new accounts and IPs from editing the page, while established editors can still edit. It is for me a bit unclear how much editing by IPs and new accounts is appropriate.

I will keep my eyes open for more of these links. --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:45, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

There haven't been any real problems on the article, just one user (or group?) that keeps adding this link. The same account(s) do other edits to the article and elsewhere that I don't have a problem with, so I just want to blacklist the link for the time being.--Father Goose (talk) 00:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, though they will then probably start with yet another domain. Please keep me posted. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

Thank you Father Goose, for being the first person at the Adminstrators' noticeboard to suggest my recent block was inappropriate. And you were correct about me being angry at the block. When I said I was leaving, I was absolutely livid for being blocked for supposed vandalism, and at the time I also had the worst flu I can ever remember having. After seeing my first unblock request be denied and my second unblock request go unanswered...it was all just too much. After being gone for a week, I'm less upset and not as sick. I can't seem to keep myself away. Thank you for what you said. I appreciate it. --Pixelface (talk) 12:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

You're quite welcome. I don't get the sense that AGK is a habitual power-abuser like some admins, but this block was applied too readily and for the wrong reasons.
While we're here, I feel like commenting more at length about the issue over which it occurred, WP:PLOT. I support moving it into a guideline; it deals with a nuanced issue that I think is more appropriate there than in a deletion policy page. I don't support removing it from WP:NOT until such an alternative home has been set up. You won't actually get it out of WP:NOT until that is in place, because even those who support removing it from NOT mostly support the general idea -- an article comprised of nothing but a plot rehash is just not good. I recommend creating a new guideline proposal, solely about plot, where we can hash out the nuances and our differences in an atmosphere not yet poisoned by animosity (such as WP:WAF). If such a guideline gains support, then we can propose moving PLOT out of NOT to a more rightful place.
I see you responded to Masem's proposal to make WP:PLOT even more restrictive, and you possibly noticed my agreement with it. My view is that we shouldn't give any more plot detail than a movie review or "blurb" would give (IMDB's plot summaries are about right), because while we are allowed to spoil works, I see no reason why we should (especially right at the top of the article!) unless it's necessary to make sense of the commentary we also provide (and then, the "spoilers" should appear with the commentary, not in the synopsis). In the long run, our full plot regurgitations may also get us into legal trouble; there is some precedent for such material being a copyright violation. While I have come to see Mike Godwin's wisdom in not trying to anticipate lawsuits in this regard, I still think we wrong both content publishers and consumers by "reproducing" works, minus all the artistry, every chance we get. We ultimately wrong ourselves as well, and this is what is most important: I've learned the hard way to not read any article about a work of fiction I might want to read/see in the future, because it will be spoiled for me, without fail. I can't risk trying to find out "what it's about", "what critics thought of it", or learn any background material about it or its place in the annals of fiction without being told first that "it's about Darth Vader being Luke's father and Luke gets his hand chopped off and Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite." Now, where the "father" thing is concerned, we could discuss that as a cultural icon, oft repeated and parodied, and even better, we could talk about how Lucas wrote it as "Obi Wan is your father" in the script to throw everyone off the track in case it was leaked. (And also about James Earl Jones' reaction when he first read the correct line: "ooh, he's lying!") But all details that we insist on giving that are not related to our commentary and analysis of the film? Why don't we just let people enjoy learning them the same way we did -- by watching the movie?--Father Goose (talk) 21:21, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks again. I definitely support moving PLOT to a guideline. I really don't think it has the consensus required to be in a policy. It doesn't appear like it had consensus in the first place. There are multiple threads in the WT:NOT archives (from Archive 6 on) that express opposition to the section. I know that an article comprised of just a plot summary is not good. But Wikipedia is a work in progress. The Baldrick article has existed since October 2, 2001. PLOT being under WP:IINFO means that most articles in Category:Fictional character stubs "fail" policy. We do not have BLP concerns with fictional character biographies. And Wikipedia is not paper. I don't think fictional character biographies make Wikipedia an "indiscriminate collection of information." And I'm not exactly sure Wikipedia needs a guideline devoted specifically to plot summaries. WP:FICT appears to do that already, and I see no consensus in the bytes and bytes of text at WT:FICT. I think WP:FICT should be MFD'd. I believe Masem reverted me at WP:NOT because he appears singularly focused on re-writing WP:FICT without stopping to question why. Why should fictional characters be "worthy of notice"? And who should they be worthy of notice to? Other editors appear singularly focused on enforcing WP:FICT NOW, while it's still a proposal, as if it was written on stone tablets. There are people who would AFD Homer's Night Out saying "Fails WP:PLOT" which shows how asinine WP:PLOT is.
I don't think we wrong authors, publishers, or readers by having articles about fictional topics. As long as there is no plagiarism, I just don't see it. If anything, articles about fictional topics bring them to the attention of a wider audience. I really don't care about spoilers in articles at this point. If I even begin to talk about the spoiler template or the spoiler guideline, I will go into a blind rage. And I'm certainly not worried about legal trouble. Despite what WP:FAIR says, Wikipedia is not a lawyer. The foundation employs an actual lawyer to deal with legal issues and I highly doubt that anyone participating at WT:NOT is a lawyer. The other day Phirazo asked me "I'm sure there is someone who wants to write an articles on the various shopkeepers in Diagon Alley, should we let them?" Despite whatever fears people may have about The Harry Potter Lexicon lawsuit, that sort of thing is for the Foundation to deal with. That's for actual lawyers to deal with. Not layman Wikipedia editors. I don't think PLOT would prevent a lawsuit anyway. If there were articles for each shopkeeper in Diagon Alley, and if those articles contained "sourced analysis" like PLOT recommends, how exactly would that prevent a lawsuit if someone bound them in a book and sold them? If an author or publisher wants to send Wikipedia a takedown letter, editors cannot stop them. And there are actual lawyers who can evaluate it. Unless Mike Godwin puts PLOT into NOT himself, it doesn't belong there. I think it would be nice if readers didn't have to have fictional works spoiled for them, but that's an issue related to the the spoiler guideline and content disclaimer, not a list of things Wikipedia is not. --Pixelface (talk) 11:44, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Dropping by, Father goose, I am alarmed at your "view is that we shouldn't give any more plot detail than a movie review or "blurb" would give (IMDB's plot summaries are about right)" --they are aimed not at information, but at minimal information. Why shouldn't someone be able to find out the plot of a movie from reading it here, and a book also--do you think this also applies to books, by the way? do people go to movies to find out the bare outline of what happens, or to see & hear what happens, in full detail? Did you read or see Moby Dick to find out if a whale was killed at the end? Isn't it relevant for the reader afterwards to be able to fill in the actual plot if they want to, which they probably missed in all the effects and dialog. Isn't it valuable for you to find out here about a much wider range of things than you will ever go to hear, or see? If anyone does not want to know the plot, they dont have to read the article. I have yet to see the publisher who would object to as much detail as the fullest and stupidest plot summary here holds--because, yes, there are over dull over detailed "summaries", generally done by children who think that a minute by minute listing is readable. The guideline is to provide as much as anyone would want who didnt want to see or read the work--to provide here, as elsewhere in Wikipedia, as much as makes any sense in an encyclopedia. I am really surprised that you in particular don't want the same full coverage of plot as for cultural references. Most plot articles in Wikipedia are much too barren. DGG (talk) 22:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dear Father

I would like your opinion on a list I am making. I'm pretty sure it's complete. User:JohnnyMrNinja/Water in popular culture ~ JohnnyMrNinja 07:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

You overlooked Chinatown. Otherwise it looks pretty good.--Father Goose (talk) 01:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)